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Unfortunately, this proved something of a wasted opportunity to really capitalise on bowling first on such a responsive pitch. The absence of the requisite control and accuracy to consistently make the batsmen play, particularly during the Friday post lunch session - brief as it proved (another issue altogether!), merely allowed the home team to establish a firm grip on the game which, with their quality of attack, they were always unlikely to relinquish easily.

With only 4 of our bats making double figures in two completed innings, David Sales seems destined to have a demanding job on his hands this season.

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Although we could probably have done better with the ball first innings, I think our seam attack is going to be one of the best in the division this year. I wish I could say the same for our batting. Although it was clearly a bowler's wicket we seemed to crumble far too easily in both innings. It was a bowlers wicket for Middx too and they manged quite a lot more runs.

It was our batting that let us down in the CC last year and first signs are that it could happen again. Only Procter has been brought in to strengthen a line-up which didn't perform last year and I was desperately hoping we'd sign another batsman over the Winter. I fear we might come up short on the CC batting front again, but hope to be proved wrong.

Agree that David Sales needs to earn his corn as a coach, having been given the role full time despite no real indication of progress on the batting front last year.

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Agree with all comments here. The bowling should be OK again but the batting is still thin and will struggle even on better surfaces. There was talk in pre-season that we had strengthened all areas but to me we have just replaced outgoing players like-for like, can't really see any extra depth.